Election rolls riddled with errors, commissioner says

 
By ANNE PAINE
Staff Writer

Presentation reeks of 'divisive' politics, chairwoman contends

The county's voter database is a ''ticking time bomb'' full of tens of thousands of inaccurate entries that could lead to legal challenges in a close race, a Davidson County election commissioner said yesterday.

The names of about 25,000 inactive voters appear to be missing, Commissioner Lynn Greer said. Also, he said, more than 11,000 returned ''address verification'' cards were never entered into the data system.

Greer said that 50 folks listed as active voters used the same address — a parking lot belonging to First Baptist Church on Seventh Avenue South, just off Broadway.

''An analysis of the database raised a number of very serious questions concerning the integrity of the data and the completeness of the address verification program required by state and federal law,'' said Greer, a Republican.

He presented these and other allegations along with a stack of paperwork to the commission yesterday during its regular monthly meeting, surprising Democrats and prompting talk after the meeting of party politics.

The commission, made up of three Democrats and two Republicans as required by state law, has traditionally erupted from time to time in cross-party sniping.

Chairwoman Betty Nixon, a Democrat, said the points Greer listed would be investigated.

''This is preliminary information,'' she said in the meeting. ''We obviously need to get it right, and we'll answer the questions in an orderly fashion.''

Late yesterday afternoon, she said Greer's method of presenting his concerns smacked of partisan politics, because he didn't first discuss details with staff or put the issue on the agenda.

''I'm not saying they're not legitimate concerns, but the method and the tone taken is not a problem-solving one,'' she said. ''If you use the process of broadsiding, you create an environment in which it's hard for the commission to get into consensus building. It's divisive.''

Greer asked in the statement he read to the commission that a full, written response to his ''findings and questions'' be provided to him within 10 days.

''It's not partisan politics,'' Greer said last night. ''It's about abiding by the law. The Davidson County Election Commission has the responsibility to see that we abide by the law. We've been complaining about this for a year.''

He said he pulled information from the Election Commission's database and compared it with reports from staff member Kathy Charlton-Deshotels, who has been in charge of a voter verification project.

''The files are riddled with voters who live at nonexistent residences, do not accurately reflect the totals that should be present based on the data reported to the commissioners by Ms. Deshotels, and are replete with voters who should have long ago been purged or transferred to the inactive rolls,'' he said during the meeting.

George Barrett, Deshotels' attorney, said last night that the issue appeared to be a ''continuation of an ongoing feud of the Democrats and Republicans on the election commission.''

''If Mr. Greer is really, sincerely interested in all this, I would suggest the proper way is not by grandstanding before television cameras and newspaper reporters,'' he said.

The points could be raised in a ''discreet manner, not to embarrass or intimidate'' staff members, he said.

A long-running controversy began before Christmas after Deshotels — at the request of a Democratic commission member — downloaded from the mainframe computer part of Republican staff member Sandra Wood's computer files.

Commissioner Eddie Bryan, a Democrat, had asked Deshotels to give the files to Election Administrator Michael McDonald, who told Deshotels to take them to Bryan.

The files were considered by Bryan to be evidence of Republican business being carried out on Metro computers. McDonald and Wood's immediate supervisor said Wood had done nothing wrong.

Deshotels was fired and then reinstated after she filed a lawsuit that was later settled.

Wood filed her own suit, saying it was an illegal search of her computer data and that Deshotels and Bryan were guilty of ''serial harassment.'' That suit was dismissed.

Greer said last night that his action was not about retaliation.

''When people don't want to look at the message, they start shooting the messenger,'' he said.

The focus should be on finding out whether the information that Republicans have put together is borne out in an investigation, he said.

The parking lot where he said 50 active voters are listed is the former location of the Nashville Union Rescue Mission, which is now on Lafayette Street.

The homeless are allowed to vote and it's OK if they list their home as under the Shelby Street Bridge or anywhere else, but they have to have an address where they receive mail, Greer said.

''None of these had voted in the last two federal elections,'' he said. ''They should be on inactive status.''

Almost 40,000 voters classified as active have not voted or d their registration records for two consecutive November elections, he said. They, too, should be moved to inactive status, he said.

They could still vote, but the county could save $10,000 in postage by not sending address verification cards to people who don't vote, he said.

Nearly 8,000 didn't vote in the last decade but remain on the active list, which had 303,000 voters as of May, he said. One person hadn't voted in 34 years, he said, but had repeatedly asked for duplicate voter registration cards.

Someone could get a copy of the database and find names of chronic non-voters, Greer said.

''If one wanted to fraudulently vote under someone else's name, wouldn't this knowledge be useful?'' he asked.

He also said 300 people were added to the county's voter rolls for the 2000 presidential election, even though they filed after the registration deadline.

He wants to know how this happened, who they are and who registered them.